Mobile Fighter G-Gundam Vol. #10

What They SayStill scheming to get rid of Domon, Wong has decided that Domon should have to fight his friends! One by one, Domon must battle the other members of the Shuffle Alliance.

Nationalism vs. The Shuffle Alliance Ideals - Domon realizes he must defeat his friends in order to win them over to his cause. Even if he does win, his next opponent is none other than his former teacher... The undefeated of the east, Master Asia!

The Review!Domon continues his battles against the Shuffle Alliance here and along the way learns a number of life altering revelations.

Audio:For our primary viewing session, we listened to this show in its original language of Japanese. Though originally released in 1994, the track for this appears to be a pro-logic mix, though I don’t really hear anything coming through the rear speakers unless my ears are playing tricks on me. The Japanese track feels a small bit lower than the English track, with dialogue feeling a slight bit muffled at times. There’s not a whole lot of directionality going on, since when things happen, they’re loud all-encompassing moments of destruction that fill up the entire forward soundstage.

Video:The transfer for this release looks decent, but in general feels like it’s not up to snuff when compared to other Gundam series. The shows look and feel continues to be of a more drab and lifeless feel, even when you do have the bright outdoor exteriors. It may be a bit simply animated, but the only real problems we noticed with this transfer is some occasional cross coloration and aliasing as well as some light color banding during a few areas of solid colors.

Packaging: The deathmatch episode gets featured on the cover here with Domon and Schwarz’s Gundams set inside the caged ring. The back cover provides a few shots of the show itself and a few paragraphs of show summary. The discs volume numbering, done in rounds, shows up on both the spine and the front cover, earning good kudos from us. The back cover lists the episode numbers and the basic features of the disc. The insert provides another shot of the front cover while it opens to reveal a bio on the Four Kings Gundams, some of the more amusing looking ones of the series. The back of the insert provides the production and cast information for the show.

Menu:The menus are nicely done though a bit simple. The main static image is of a circuit board while to the right there are some visuals from the episodes playing. Selections are mixed into the circuit board area and access times are nice and fast. There’s little to the disc outside of the basics, so moving about is pretty easy and the layout is fairly standard for Bandai releases. One of the best spots is the episode selection area in how that’s laid out. Very neat.

Extras: The only extra this time around continues to be the G-Files, which has the director going on at length about various episodes on this volume. There is a lot of really neat bits, from the designs of Sai’s father to the fact that he was almost dared to put the horse in a skinsuit. For those looking for some of the deeper meanings, and they are there, you can’t pass up these G-Files.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)After a couple months break from the last box set, settling back into the G-Gundam world was pretty easy and quickly became intoxicating, requiring each subsequent episode to be watched as quickly as possible and with as few delays as required. It’s easy to become a real junkie on this stuff.

The four episodes here move the storyline along nicely as Wong continues to pit opponents against Domon to test him in being the ideal pilot that he and Master Asia need for their upcoming deeds. Domon continues to face off against each of the Shuffle Alliance members, much like the previous volume. Each of them brings something new to the table, but it’s almost a foregone conclusion that Domon will win each round, but everyone will come out the better and stronger for it.

The fights here prove to be quite good. Sai Saici in particular brings a level of violence and eagerness to his fight after we learn some of his family background and the ordeals his father had gone through in years past. Having the Emperor of Neo-China in attendance also brings an interesting amount of pressure onto him, but there’s some really good moments throughout that helps elevate the youngest of the Shuffle Alliance into something more formidable than before. His fight with Domon proves to be one of the more violently emotional ones so far.

Another really good piece comes when Domon gets lined up against Argo, but Wong uses some interesting incentives to cause trouble with it. Making it a two team event, he has Allenby side with him in the battle and then has Argo and the pilot from the Canadian team, his arch enemy from episodes past and a battle that just ended, as his teammate. To make it even more interesting, he “acquires” the lead of Allenby’s support crew and utilizes him to activate the berserker mode during a critical moment, which sends her Gundam into a craze.

Wong also sets the stage for the final battle before the big Battle Royale that’s going to occur by pitting Domon against Schwarz. And this isn’t just any match, but a caged deathmatch between the two where if one doesn’t flat out defeat the other in ten minutes time, the enter cage will explode and kill them both. This would be bad enough for Domon as it is, but he’s even more out of sorts than normal having run Rain off into resigning her position, only to find her working for Schwarz now. This fight brings about some interesting revelations as we see into Domon’s past and see how things have been tied together for so long.

While the big Gundam fights are fun to watch and pretty varied, it’s the wide ranging cast of characters the continues to be the real draw. Watching how Wong is now alienating Master Asia, the growing relationship between Allenby and Domon that’s annoying Rain and the continued mystery of just who Schwarz is all reaches new levels here. This show is just pure fun and entertainment. It’s got some wacky moments, such as Master Asia’s horse suiting up into its own Gundam, but there’s just so much great raw emotion to the rest of the show that it really overpowers that.